Janet Daley was born in America where she began her political life on the Left as an undergraduate at Berkeley. She moved to Britain (and to the Right) in 1965 where she spent nearly twenty years in academic life before becoming a political commentator: all factors that inform her writing on British and American policy and politicians.

Labour admits you can cut spending without damaging services

An astonishing admission from Liam Byrne, chief secretary to the Treasury: appearing before the Public Administration Committee, Mr Byrne said that the next comprehensive spending review would be extremely stringent. But, he pointed out, it did not necessarily follow that cuts in public spending would result in poorer quality public services. Was he aware of the explosive political ramifications of his remarks?

What he told the PAC was that "there will be a degree of pain (in the form of reduced budgets), but I don't think it damages your ability to deliver good public services." If cutting back on the present level of spending will do no damage to the quality of services, that must mean that a proportion of that spending has been surplus to requirements all along. Or is there some other function to public spending than providing good services? (To create more public sector jobs, perhaps? Thereby increasing the number of people who are likely to believe that their livelihoods depend on a Labour government?)

Another interesting comment from Mr Byrne was that the Government planned to devolve "a degree" of control over how public services were provided. Labour has apparently discovered that, as Mr. Byrne put it, "people want to participate much more in how public services are delivered." We can assume that, in the great Labour tradition, this new attention to people-power will be more rhetoric than reality but if the Conservatives do not want to have their best lines stolen before their eyes, they had better get moving.